News Release 307

GASCONADE AND MARIES COUNTIES
RECEIVE ASSISTANCE FROM DEPARTMENT TO
RESTORE AND ESTABLISH SURVEY CORNERS

Volume 36-307

Contact: Hylan Beydler

(For immediate release)

573-368-2118

ROLLA, MO, MAY 23, 2008 -- Surveying work has begun as a result of a request from local surveyors and the Gasconade County commissioners to have a 12-mile stretch of the boundary between Gasconade and Maries counties retraced. Corners of the Public Land Survey System (PLSS) which define this boundary will be remonumented.

The boundary's original survey corners were marked in the 1800s by 4-foot wooden posts, large stones and in some instances, by marking trees. Many of these markers have been damaged or obliterated. Subsequently, they are not easily identifiable by property owners as official monuments that control property boundaries.

When a lack of monumentation exists, it is necessary to retrace surveys of boundary lines to recover the original corners and to reestablish others. Section corners are used by surveyors to determine property line boundaries, road right of ways, and subdivision and condominium boundaries.

Thirty-six standardized section corner markers made of durable materials that will withstand the weather, construction and on occasion, vandalism will be placed along this boundary. The project was contracted with Gasconade County Surveying of Hermann.

In the early 1970s, the department began a process of recovery and preservation of the state's section corners that have been damaged or obliterated. More than 7,000 new markers have been replaced or reestablished by the various county surveyors with funds provided by the department. Today, there are more than 13,800 U.S. PLSS corners with geographic or state plane coordinates. Each fiscal year, the department adds more than 2,300 restored corners to a statewide database and places permanent, aluminum monuments at approximately 600 of these important corners.

"Property owners will neither gain nor lose land. Property descriptions are 'tied' to these section corners. The only thing that is affected is the distance from a section corner to an individual's property. In the case of large acreage parcels of land, a more accurate measurement is often provided for each half-mile around the section," said J. Michael Flowers, the State Land Surveyor.

The department's State Land Surveyor's office is responsible for developing the specifications for the survey and for selecting a contractor. The State Land Surveyor has the responsibility of maintaining the U.S. Public Land Survey System in Missouri. Flowers said, "Remonumenting these damaged or destroyed land survey corners will help toward building Missouri's infrastructure and strengthen our information network for use by the community, business, industry, professional land surveyors and government."

Visitors to the department's Web site are now able to perform a number of searches from their home computers 24 hours a day, seven days a week, on the vast holdings at the state's Land Survey Repository. Searches on the Land Survey Index include legal descriptions (township, range and section), subdivision plats, U.S. survey number, General Land Office plats and field notes by township, surveyor name or number and City of St. Louis city blocks and roads. Additional information about the department's Land Survey Program may be found on the Web at www.dnr.mo.gov/geology/landsurvey/.  For news releases, visit www.dnr.mo.gov/newsrel.

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